


And Thyself, Too, Shall Die

by Kingfishing (LuckyLikesLemons)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, AtsuHina Week 2020, Crimes & Criminals, Emotional Manipulation, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Murder, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:06:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyLikesLemons/pseuds/Kingfishing
Summary: Shoyou has been enslaved to his city since the moment he was born, and like many of her denizens, he knows that he cannot escape.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	And Thyself, Too, Shall Die

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh, My first AtsuHina fic! It's been ages since I delved into Haikyuu, and I picked up right where the current arc started. Brilliant timing.
> 
> I found out about the AtsuHina week only a couple hours ago, so here I am, giving you all something to enjoy.
> 
> This started out as a humble one shot, but then grew into something far beyond my control. Hope you like it!

_**Omnium Rerum Principia Parva Sunt** _

' _The beginnings of all things are small.'_

The skies over Tokyo are dark and grim, scudding and roiling with the promise of storms.

Clouds tower over skyscrapers like ghostly white sceptres, the city lights barely managing to pierce through a hazy veil of dust and black soot.

The streets are still busy, choked with cars and trucks and dying people. The hot tarmac pulsates beneath his feet with an energy that thrums through his veins, amber gold and heavy like liquor sloshing in a glass.

The street lamps flicker like fireflies, illuminating shadows and drowning light. They create their own pantomime of dancing silhouettes and dizzying umbra, of dark spaces and white vaccum, and they pull him in with little effort.

* * *

He is alive in a dying city. A city of corruption, vice and sin. A city that does not care for justice, a city that revels in its evil, proud and unabashed, a cold and cruel and calculating mistress.

Shoyou has been enslaved to her since the moment he was born, and like many of her denizens, he knows that he cannot escape.

So he learns to accept her, her knives and barbs and steel knotted wire. He learns to accept her tyranny and her injustice, learns to receive her abuse and her criticism, learns to bend and bow and beg until she gets tired of him and let's him live.

* * *

Living in Tokyo is difficult. It demands hardships and harassment and ritual sacrifice. 

It does not give a lot in return.

Shoyou sighs as he trudges wearily up the steps of his housing estate, a dilapidated block of flats hidden away in a filthy corner of the city. 

The stench of broken sewer piepes and stale cigarette smoke permeates the air. Luckily, the municipal workers had come along to hose down the walls the previous night, so the odour of urine isn't so apparent. He's very grateful.

* * *

He stumbles across a man sprawled out on the landing. He manages to catch hold of the bannister in time, but not before banging his shin on the hard, unforgiving stair. 

There's a sudden, excruciating moment of pain.

Blinking back tears, he hobbles down the corridor towards his shoddy, one bedroom apartment. The door creaks open on rusty hinges, a fleck of mint green paint falling from the peeling frame as soon as he slams it shut.

* * *

He glances around his home. The ceiling is damp, spotted with mold. There's a bed, a sordid affair in iron with a military issued mattress, smothered in dirty sheets and two weeks of laundry.

There's a wardrobe, empty save for dead moths and dusty cobwebs. A chest of drawers filled with knick-knacks and old newspapers. A bathroom of cockroaches and unseen horrors, hidden from site by a musty curtain he'd drawn across two nails.

There's an unwieldy granite slab poking out from the wall, shielding the lone electric socket. On top of it sits a kettle, a teacup with no handle, a metal dish piled up with packets of outdated ramen and dry seaweed that he'd salvaged from grocery refuse tips.

The windows are grilled, locked and double bolted, sealed over with splatters of pigeon excrement and centuries worth of grime. 

A fitting prison, he thinks.

* * *

The only source of fresh air is a vent in the corner where an air conditioning unit had been fixed before. Through it he can see a 10 by 10 square centimetre space of forboding night sky. Sometimes a star, if he's lucky.

He stares through it now, wonders if there's a world out there that's easier, brighter, cleaner than this one.

The rain pours down in protest, thunder and lightning clashing across the skies. The scent of petrichor and rotten fruit wafts up to him from the streets.

The scent is familiar.

The scent is _home_.

* * *

Tokyo tells him -

**_No._ **

**_No._ **

**_You were born here Hinata Shoyou, and you will die here._ **

**_You belong to me._ **

Shoyou smiles, a bitter, tragic smile.

His city has spoken. 

Who is he to refuse?

* * *

5 to 11.

3 to 9.

Two shifts, no breaks, grueling, back breaking work.

Hinata Shoyou is a janitor at a local hospice. He is also a trucker for an Onigiri chain. In between, he waits tables, posts letters, does odd jobs and deliveries.

None of these makes ends meet.

* * *

He was born in hard times. His father gambled away the family money and promptly run off, leaving his mother at the mercy of loan sharks and the local mafia. The debt had fallen to him after her untimely death, leaving him and his sister in an abyss they're still struggling hard to crawl out of. 

His sister works as a shop assistant somewhere. He tries to meet up with her once in a while, tries to convince her that it's okay, that they'll get out of this hell somehow. The reassurances are thin, full of false cheer and desperate optimism. They convince no one.

It's hard, but he can't give up. Giving up means defeat, and in Tokyo, defeat means death.

* * *

Everyday, the city sneers. Laughs at him, taunts him - _**is that it, is that all you can take? Will this be the thing that breaks you, Hinata Shoyou?**_

Everyday, he fights back. _No. No. I may be small, I may be fragile, but I will not break._

It tests his patience sometimes, wears him down, whittles him into tiny, shaven wood chips when he was once a proud tree.

But then he sees the headlines - gunfights, stabbings, gangwars and cocaine cartels, a girl gone missing down an alleyway, never to be seen again.

* * *

When he reads those, he feels oddly grateful. _Thank you,_ he says to Tokyo. _At least you didn't make me one of them._

The city preens.

 _ **Well, I do care about you. Sometimes**_. 

_Sometimes_.

It is enough.

* * *

Twitter [LuckyLikesLemon](https://twitter.com/LuckyLikesLemon)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and that's the start. I hope it set an interesting tone. Do leave kudos and comments after you finish reading, I'd love to know what you think ❤️
> 
> Come follow me on Twitter for spoilers and updates 🙃


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